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ANTIOCH

(Gk. Antiócheia)

1. Antioch toward Pisidia. A city in the southern part of the Roman province called Galatia, in the central part of modern Turkey. More precisely it was actually located in Phrygia, a district in southern Galatia bordering on the northern boundary of the district of Pisidia. The boundaries of both districts are indefinite. The 1st-century geographer Strabo placed it in Phrygia on the south side of a mountain ridge facing Pisidia. Thus, he called it “Antioch near Pisidia” or “Antioch toward Pisidia” (Geog. 12.8.14). This agrees with the best manuscripts of Acts 13:14, which have “Pisidian Antioch” (NIV) rather than “Antioch of Pisidia” as in other translations.

Bypassing Perga, Paul went directly to Antioch on his first visit to Asia Minor (Acts 13:13-14). He probably visited it again on his second journey (Acts 16:6) and may have passed through it again on his third journey (18:23). The city was at the peak of its importance when Paul was there, functioning as the center of both civil and military administration in southern Galatia, with roads leading from there to the various colonies. In 25 b.c. the emperor Augustus had refounded the city as a Roman colony and populated it with veterans from the legions. Emperor worship flourished here, enhanced by a number of buildings connected with the imperial cult. Most of the construction in Antioch was done under the emperors Tiberius and Claudius. Tiberius was the principal builder of the temple of Augustus which stood in the center of the city. Two other temples stood near this one dedicated to pagan worship, one of which an excavator of Antioch has described as among the great hill-top sacred sites of southwestern Anatolia.

2. Antioch of Syria. The largest and most important of 16 cities in the ancient world that were named after the Syrian emperor Antiochus. His son, Seleucus I Nicator, founder of the Seleucid Empire, built it and named it in his honor. It was located 80 km. (50 mi.) S of the point where the peninsula of Asia Minor curves south into the Eastern Mediterranean seaboard of Syria-Palestine and at the foot of Mt. Silpius on the Orontes River, which gave it access to the Mediterranean port city of Seleucia.

The population of the city in the mid-1st century a.d. may have reached 300 thousand, though estimates run as low as 100 thousand. The larger figure is suggested by the 1st-century geographer Strabo (Geog. 16.2.5), who said it was not much smaller than Alexandria in Egypt. That city had more than 300 thousand freemen in the mid-1st century b.c. (Diodorus Siculus Hist. 17.52).

Antioch had a large, wealthy Jewish population in the 1st century (Josephus BJ 7:43). These Jews endowed beautifully decorated synagogues, and “constantly attracted to their religious ceremonies multitudes of Greeks” (BJ 7.45). The first mention of Antioch in the NT is in reference to a proselyte to the Jewish faith from this city, one Nicolaus, who accepted Christ and was subsequently appointed as one of seven men to oversee the needs of Hellenist widows in Jerusalem in the early days of the Church (Acts 6:5).

Missionary work was done by people who fled the persecutions in Jerusalem and soon after arriving in Antioch “spoke to the Greeks also” (Acts 11:20). These “Greeks” were probably “Godfearers,” Gentiles who were frequently attracted to Jewish monotheism (e.g., Acts 10:22). This missionary activity resulted in “a great number” (Acts 11:21) of gentile conversions and prompted the church in Jerusalem to send Barnabas to Antioch to monitor the progress. Barnabas, impressed by the large number of converts and probably aware of Paul’s commission to preach to Gentiles (Acts 26:17), brought him from Tarsus to work in Antioch.

For a year, they worked together in this gentile center (Acts 11:26) which subsequently became the sponsoring church for his missionary journeys to the gentile world (13:3; 15:40; 18:22-23). The term “Christian” (“follower of the Messiah”) was first applied to the disciples of Jesus in this predominantly Gentile Christian city (Acts 11:26).

Eusebius records a tradition in the 4th century that the first bishop of Antioch was Peter (HE 3.36.2) who was succeeded by Evodius and then by the well-known martyr Ignatius of Antioch, who died in the reign of Trajan (ca. 108; HE 3.22).

One of the most remarkable events in the history of the early Church relating to ethnic distinctions occurred in Antioch. When Peter visited Paul on one occasion, these two most influential leaders in the 1st-century Church argued in the presence of the whole Church about Peter’s vacillation on requirements of gentile converts. Paul accused Peter of acting “insincerely” (Gk. “hypocritically”). In this highly dramatic situation, Paul “opposed him to his face because he stood condemned” (Gal. 2:11), rebuking this chief of Apostles “before them all” (v. 14).

Antioch was undoubtedly the most important city after Jerusalem in the early expansion of the Church. After the Jerusalem conference ended, the decisions reached by the conference were immediately sent to Antioch in a letter which was taken by two “leading men among the brethren,” Silas and Judas, indicating the importance of Antioch in the eyes of the Jerusalem church. Paul and Barnabas accompanied them (Acts 15:22).

Because the modern city Antakya stands on the site of ancient Antioch, little archaeological excavation has been conducted there. Much of our information about the city must therefore be derived from ancient writers, most significantly Strabo, Evagrius, Procopius, Libanius, the emperor Julian, John Chrysostom, and especially the Chronicle of John Malalas. A number of prominent people contributed to the building projects in Antioch, among them the Hellenistic rulers Seleucus I (311-281 b.c.) and Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164) and the Roman rulers Pompey, Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Tiberius Caesar, Caligula, and Claudius.

Antioch was built on the Hippodamian grid of a typical Hellenistic city with streets laid out in city blocks 112 m. × 58 m. (367 ft. × 190 ft.). Herod the Great built a colonnaded street, which ran the full length of the city, north to south, and cut Antioch in half (Josephus BJ 1.425; Ant. 16.148). Tiberius is credited with the construction of monumental gates at each main intersection of the city’s streets.

The city was surrounded by a wall and contained many important buildings including a palace and a circus, both begun in 67 b.c. Starting in 47 b.c. Julius Caesar constructed a theater, an amphitheater, bathhouses, an aqueduct, and a Kaisareion, perhaps the oldest basilica in the east, for use by the cult of Rome. It carried his name and contained a statue of himself. He also rebuilt the Pantheon temple.

Part of the rebuilding was prompted by two earthquakes which hit Antioch in the time of Paul, one in a.d. 37, at the beginning of the reign of Caligula (37-41), and the second during the reign of Claudius (41-54). The latter quake also damaged Ephesus, Smyrna, and other cities of Asia Minor.

The “Silver Chalice of Antioch,” purportedly discovered here in 1910 and thought by some to be the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper, has been dated by authorities from the 2nd to the 6th century.

John McRay

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ANTIOCH

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)